If They Can Teach a Robot to Have a Sense of Humor…

Seriously. I’ll get to the humorous robot shortly, but in the meantime, so random random thoughts, musings and ideas related to the always fascianting world of work and workplace culture…

One of the mindsets that drives success at Apple is this: Employees are encouraged to consider two separate achievements at the end of every project – the actual product itself and what they learned in the process. They stress the learning aspect because they realize that what people learn during a project will largely determine their future success.

I love this observation from the book Great Places to Work: “Why is it that when we see the CEO picking up trash in the parking lot he’s a hero, but when we see a custodial employee doing the same job we consider it menial labor?”

A Harvard Business Review research report shows that 96% of employees experience rudeness at work; 80% of employees report losing work time worrying about the incident; 12% left their jobs because of rude behavior; 25% admitted to taking their frustrations out on customers. Rudeness at work costs you time and money! (So…be NICE!)

More and more workplaces are creating alumni databases in order to maintain contact with retired employees.The consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has a “Manager of Alumni Programs” and over 3,000 alumni.

It’s easy to shoot down ideas, so try this to generate some interesting discussion: Make the naysayers present evidence that an idea won’t work.

Rather than providing feedback to fellow employees, adopt a mindset and approach of “feed forward”: Focus on the positive behaviors in the future that will help get the results everyone wants without ever talking about the past.

Microsoft is partnering with The New Yorker to teach a robot how to have a sense of humor. Which begs the question, if they can teach a robot to have a sense of humor…why can’t they teach everyone? (Like the guy who served me at the store this morning, as just one example.)